Winter's Child
by sunshine and lollipops
Summary: Post S7 fic - imagined future set after the Long Winter. Back story same as show (minus #boatsex because...just no). Show-verse only. Jorah x Dany forever. Also posted on AO3. #TeamJorah #IHeartMormonts
1. Winter on Bear Island

_General Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Obviously. Have you seen the state of the Jorah/Dany ship lately? It's not great, dear friends. But hey, maybe GRRM or D &D will turn it around…in 2019._

 _ **CHAPTER ONE: WINTER ON BEAR ISLAND**_

I was born in the Long Winter. Our maester says that it's the darkest Winter our country has ever seen. I wouldn't know but I believe him.

In the bleakest days, the snows have piled up so high they cover the eaves of our wooden halls. The winter storms howl and moan against the black stones of the coast, spitting up ice from the sea that freezes in long strands against the ship rigging and decorates the evergreen trees with icy pearls and silver chains that have locked them in an iron freeze for years.

My mother says that I was born during a snowstorm that lasted three days and two nights. The blizzard sang with salted ice and the vicious spray off the coast made as if to swallow the island whole. She says it's right that it happened that way. Dragons and bears should be born under fierce weather. She says we're both stormborn and then kisses the top of my silver-blond head and says she's glad for it.

The storm nearly stole my father from us. Mother had given him up for dead the night before he made it home. He walked into their bedroom all covered in snow, ice and blood and she would have cursed him for making her fear the worst, but the look on his weathered face as he beheld my mother and I, the newborn infant cradled in her arms, calmed any fiery words between them.

I've seen the looks that pass between my mother and father sometimes, at quiet moments, and I swear they can speak to each other without words. Perhaps all men and women who have traversed hell and emerged alive are the same.

Once in a while, I wonder what it must have been like to live through those times before the Long Winter, when the meadows were green instead of white and the sun frolicked in the sky for more than an afternoon. When the frost gales came screaming out of the north, battles were still raging in open fields. And they froze. All those brave men and women froze, good and wicked together, with the stark, raw force of ice biting into flesh and tearing it from the bone.

If my father hadn't forced my mother away from her mad quest to conquer a doomed country, she would have died on those battlefields, same as the rest. But in the end, he seized her hand and dragged her North, across the channel and away from the dying embers of a lost war. In another time, she would have protested loudly. She would have told him that the Seven Kingdoms were hers to take. With fire and blood. But too much had happened and the news that Jon Snow, the last of her family, had fallen clutched her heart in an icy grip.

The names of the dead are spoken in hushed tones here but I hear them so often that they are as familiar to me as any who live in the halls of Bear Island. Jaime Lannister, who was named Kingslayer and Queenslayer both, before the end. Beric Donndarion, the man who died on his seventh try. Melisandre, the Red Priestess of Asshai, strangled by a one-handed smuggler at the Last Stand of Winterfell. Varys, the Spider, disappearing into the snow drifts after the battle turned grim.

And grim it turned. As Jon Snow, the Stark bastard, the Targaryen prince, the second most skilled dragon-rider in all the world, fell. Rhaegal and Viserion reached each other, talons outstretched, with both fire and ice burning the rafters of the sky. The dragons left their riders in freefall as they ripped each other to pieces.

Jon Snow killed the Night King in the descent, as both tumbled to the ground, wrestling mid-air, flickering light and darkness, plunging his Valyrian sword into the monster's heart in the moments before they both hit the ground. They say Sansa Stark, watching from the battlements, watched her cousin fall with tears freezing against her cheeks. She went below, into the castle, soon after. The battle was won but the war was lost. Winter came to claim the few survivors.

You've heard the story, I'm sure.

 _Who hasn't?_ Lyanna Mormont, our Liege Lady, my father's young she-bear cousin would meet my comment with a heavy side eye, never one to live in the past. Or revel in its stories. From where I sit here, writing these thoughts down, I see her at the frosted windows in the Great Hall, gaze on the Northern sea breeze. She is tall and straight, with one long braid of dark hair falling down her back. She is cold like winter and strong like oak and ash.

Father says she resembles her uncle, my grandfather, more than she'll ever know. She's a true Mormont, he says, daughter of bears and steadfast honor. When she paces the halls of Bear Island, he says her footfall is nearly the same as his father, Old Jeor Mormont, pacing the wall at Castle Black.

She delights in the comparison, though she'll never admit it.

I think Lyanna would have exiled my father a second time and sent him away with the shivering Targaryen girl standing crestfallen and world-weary beside him, if the dark-hearted sea and black sky had not started conspiring together to make any exile a death sentence. And for all Lyanna Mormont's honor and belief in the Old God's sense of justice, she couldn't murder her own kin so coldly.

Besides, it was hard to turn the last dragon away. And I don't mean my mother. Drogon, older and slower now, still lives in the massive sea caves under the cliffs on the Island's west side. He is my mother's first child and her favorite, despite the many kisses she presses to my forehead and despite the fervent love I know she has for all things that my father has given her.

My father's patience is legendary. His penchant for silence is deafening. After the last of the great squalls, after the longest, coldest, darkest days of Winter seemed to have finally passed away, Tyrion Lannister sent a raven from Winterfell to see if any still survived on Bear Island. I read the letter and memorized the last line:

 _I hope and pray that Ser Jorah's glower is still as morose and unchanging as ever._

But oh, how my mother can make him smile! And how he can still surprise her. As on this very morning, when he and some of the others returned from hunting in the woods, and brought her a bouquet of violet crocuses that he found peeking out from the snow.

The violet color matched her eyes exactly.

We were sitting near the crackling fireplace in the Great Hall, Mother, Lyanna and I. Mother tipped her head so slightly at the sight of the flowers.

"For you, _Khaleesi_ ," my father said softly as he handed the bouquet into her pale, waiting hands. She grinned on the tease of that foreign name. I still don't know what it means or why my father calls her by it so often. Lyanna might know but she's not one for sentimentality and would likely tell me it's just more nonsense between the bear lord ("most disgraceful Mormont in a hundred years," she'd mutter under her breath) and his dragon maid.

"Spring," my mother, Daenerys Stormborn, murmured over the word, almost afraid to say it out loud. She held the crocuses so gently, careful not to break their fragile, wet petals. "You've brought me spring, Jorah."

"Let's hope," he answered, with caution.

"It has to come sometime," Lyanna stated as she threw another log on the fire.

"I have one for you too, Jeorgianna," Father continued, in his musical timbre, turning to me and pulling a blue, frost-colored bud from the leather pouch on his belt.

I have never seen that color on a flower, not even brought by the Winterfell envoys when they crossed the channel last year, bringing with them a few blooms from the glass houses of Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North, who has kept color alive during the long years of white and grey.

"It's beautiful," I said, in awe, taking it from him and examining it more closely. The thorns were so small, the bud so perfectly encased in the outer petals, like a thin layer of ice holding it fast.

"Beautiful and deadly," Mother sighed, perhaps conjuring up an image of the brother she never met as he laid a crown of winter roses in Lyanna Stark's lap. We all were doing the same. It was an old story, but Winter is a time for old stories.

"She should have thrown them back at Rhaegar's feet," Lyanna's tone held no sympathy for the woman she was named after. "It would have saved Westeros the bloodbaths that followed."

"Perhaps," my father conceded, garnering a small frown from his cousin, who folded her arms over her chest and silently expressed her displeasure of uncertain answers. My father shrugged, claiming the seat beside Mother, taking her free hand between both his own and soaking in the warmth he found there. "Wars do not begin without underlying discontent. It can't be blamed on a crown of roses alone."

"I wonder what this bouquet of crocuses will be blamed for?" Mother mused, holding the violet flowers close to her breast.

"With any luck…," Father lifted Mother's hand, the one he held captive, to his lips and turning her wrist, pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. Her delicate fingers curled around his bearded chin lovingly as he repeated her earlier hope, "Spring."

"Spring," Cousin Lyanna agreed, arms still crossed over her chest but that icy Mormont glower melting by a few degrees. She was not made of stone and ice, after all.

"Spring," I smiled on the pleasant melody of that unfamiliar word, tumbling off my tongue like beads of water melting off the snow drifts.

Even for a winter child, there's no better dream than spring.


	2. The Road to Winterfell

_**THE ROAD TO WINTERFELL**_

 _Six months later_

Spring did come. Finally.

And with it, came changes, some glorious and filled with promise, like that of rose buds and lilies suddenly opening into full blooms and soft rain showers falling in the green wood and on damp meadows without the sting of ice and snow. Promises like brown seals appearing on the outer banks again. Or Drogon venturing to dip and sway in the cornflower blue skies above Bear Island.

Or the most astonishing promise of all—that of my mother's recently burgeoning waist, proving Mirri Maz Duur's words hollow and false for a second time.

There were others changes that proved far less pleasant. Sansa Stark sent a raven bidding the lords and ladies of Bear Island to come and treat with them at Winterfell, as winter's passing brought somber news that Euron Greyjoy had survived the winter and, far worse than that, it appeared that his ugly ambitions had survived with him.

His fleet was being rebuilt and he was gathering mercenaries from across the Narrow Sea to replace the Ironborn who had perished in the last days of war and the long days of winter. His intention was plain. He would claim the North for himself, raiding the shores from Moat Cailin to Bear Island. If he was brazen enough, he might march inland and try for Winterfell itself.

Everyone agreed…Euron Greyjoy was plenty brazen.

There was also news from the South, that Ellaria Sand had renewed her vows of revenge for her murdered daughter, Tyene, and her slain lover, Oberyn Martell. Since both Cersei Lannister and Lord Tywin were long dead, there seemed to be only one person upon whom she might take her revenge. She blamed the Lannisters for her misfortunes. And there was only one Lannister left in the world—the Imp, Tyrion Lannister, still lived at Winterfell.

Threats from too many sides spurred Sansa Stark to action. She had forgotten nothing of the days before the long winter and would not sit idly by and watch them return. And so she called her bannermen and allies to Winterfell as soon as the eaves began dripping.

My mother insisted on coming though my father begged her not to. Her time was close and she had not been with child in ten years.

I had heard them refer to me as their miracle child more than once. When I was four years old, one of the less tactful women on the island asked my mother if she would ever give Ser Jorah a son. Mother was silent for a long time before answering, her expression far away, in other places and other times. Finally, she related the prophecy that Mirri Maz Duur, the witch-woman, had cruelly spoken to her mere hours after my half-brother, Rhaego, was born on the other side of the world, stillborn and monstrous.

Then she pulled me close to her and whispered against my little head, "You proved the witch a liar, little one."

Still, it seemed I was to be their only child. Until recently anyway, when spring returned and brought with it all manner of miracles.

At least he convinced her to ride in the wagon. She had been intent on a horse, as the snows had now receded to the mountains for the first time in a decade and the road south to Winterfell beckoned travelers with an easy path.

"Dothraki women ride until the very hour they give birth," she reminded him when we landed on the mainland, standing close to him on the speck of sandy shore, as he saddled his own roan mare. She was dressed in a dark green travelling cloak that set off her violet eyes and hid her advanced pregnancy deceptively. My father was in light armor, in case of trouble on the road, and he had exchanged his winter furs for soft leather. He shook his head with finality.

"You are _not_ Dothraki, Daenerys," he answered her firmly, as he fastened the flank cinch.

"No _Khaleesi_ now? Just Daenerys, I see," she grumbled back at him. "You pick and choose as it suits you, _Ser_ Jorah."

My father gave her a wry look in response, somehow simultaneously conveying his current exasperation, his pleas for her simple acquiescence and, as always, his undying adoration. As I've said before, my mother and father speak volumes in their silences.

Her posture lost some of its defiance, as I watched Father bend down and kiss her lips softly, fleetingly, like a brush of gentle sea breeze against a field of long grass. He followed that kiss with another, against her temple, nudging her into compliance, whispering something in her ear as he pulled away. She caught the leather cuff around his wrist and held him close for a moment longer. Stretching up on her toes, she kissed him back.

As she walked away from my father and his horse, I watched her right hand absently go to her abdomen, where she smoothed the soft fabric against the fullness of her figure. She was healthily flushed and looked content, which is not an emotion my mother is known for. I smiled at her uncommon display of peace, even in these uncertain times, and answering my smile, she took my hand in her own as we walked up the beach towards the traveling wagon.

"Well, I'll have you for company, Jeorgianna," she commented sweetly, in defeat, adding conspiratorially, "So your father won't be able to ruin this trip for me, after all…despite his best efforts." 

* * *

She was nearly right. Father did end up ruining the trip for her, though certainly not of his own volition. But it was _his_ child who decided to make an early appearance, so there's really no one else to blame.

We were no more than fifteen miles from Winterfell when I noticed her restlessness, the shadow over her violet eyes, the change in her breathing pattern. She had been subdued for most of the morning but this was different. She rose from her seat, holding onto the unsteady supports of the rambling wagon. She closed her eyes briefly and set her mouth in a firm line, sitting down again only after a few minutes of bearing some unnamed pain. She did this twice more, before managing to say a few words, breaking the tense silence of our carriage.

"Tell them to stop," she commanded, swallowing hard. "Please, Jeorgianna."

I turned in my seat immediately, getting on my knees on the padded bench and pulling the slot window open to the crisp spring air outside. There was a frigidness to the air that wasn't easily shaken and the woods we travelled through were speckled with green buds and patches of melting snow.

"Lyanna!" I called to my father's cousin. She was riding just ahead of the wagon, on her black stallion. At her name, she pulled him back, using a taut left rein to turn him abruptly. The stallion was accustomed to this sort of command. He was a beautiful animal, independent and green-broke, but his Mistress was the Lady of Bear Island and no one ever disobeyed her commands. Not even wild stallions.

"What is it?" she asked, coming up alongside the wagon, her dark, brown eyes sparking with concern at my urgent tone.

"Mother says we need to stop," I replied, adding, "And I think you should get my father."

I expected some sort of smart remark. Lyanna had her opinions on these sort of things. _Damn, foolish women_ , came to mind, as Lyanna had told me once she didn't understand how a woman could willingly subject herself to childbirth, knowing that it left her vulnerable for hours at a time, forcing her to depend on the assistance and protection of others.

But surprisingly, Lyanna just nodded shortly, pulling her stallion around again, while calling to the procession to halt. The wagon's plodding progress ended roughly, jarring my balance. Mother steadied herself on the opposite bench, eyes closed again, a muted groan escaping her slightly parted lips.

"Is there anything I can do?" I wondered quietly, hoping not to break her concentration but wanting to help if I could.

"No," she managed, in short breaths, the pain deeply etched into her pale face. Her right hand went first to her waist and then lower, where her skirt was damp with a sudden flood of water. She grimaced and cried out, as a plea, " _Jorah_!"

"I'm here, Daenerys," he answered her immediately, already at the back door of the wagon. He was at her side quickly, taking her hand and helping her sit back on the mess of cushions we'd brought from the Island. She couldn't get comfortable and squeezed his hand in a white-knuckled grip as the next wave of pain came crashing over her.

"Go get the maester, Jeorgianna," Father said, quietly, calmly, but without one glance thrown in my direction. He was pushing the wayward strands of silver-blond hair out of Mother's face with one hand, while letting her use the other as a vice grip.

"Your hands are cold," she murmured in a brief moment of release, pulling the gentle hand that stroked her hair down to rest on her too warm cheek.

"And that's a good thing?" he nearly chuckled at the way she leaned her cheek into his large hand, a doll cradled in a bear's paw.

"Mmhmm," she nodded into the smallest smile before it quickly twisted away again, pain freshly renewed and written all over her face.

"Now, Jeorgianna!" Father repeated, with force of tone, though I was already halfway out the wagon anyway. That last expression on Mother's face said there wasn't much time.

And indeed, there wasn't. My little brother, Jon, was born that very hour.


	3. First Impressions

_**FIRST IMPRESSIONS**_

"I was your age when I was last here," Lyanna commented to me as we walked down to the dining chamber from the set of upper rooms set aside for Winterfell's guests. She and I would be joining Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister for dinner. The invitation was extended by the Queen in the North herself, as soon as we arrived, from her own lips as she smiled warmly at the sight of familiar faces, unseen for the length of the long, seemingly endless winter.

Father might join us later, after he was satisfied that my mother and new little brother were both set up properly in the guest chambers and resting peacefully. Lyanna gave him a sidelong glance and told him he fretted like an old woman. He just smiled at her customary disapproval and said he'd be along. Brienne of Tarth might arrive this evening as well, as she had been sent to Castle Black to fetch Tormund Giantsbane, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, personally, since Lady Stark said he was still a wildling at heart and as liable to ignore a summons by raven as any man alive.

"Did you see Jon Snow and the Night King fall?" I asked Lyanna, nodding towards a length of burned stone outside the windows, across the courtyard. The rubble and debris had been cleaned up long ago but the rebuilding had not been attempted during the winter and there still appeared a gash in the castle, as if some sky deity had taken a broadsword and hacked at it from above. Which was nearly the truth.

"No," Lyanna shook her head, pulling her long, dark braid to one side, over her shoulder. With busy hands, she straightened the clasp that affixed the bodice of her dress to the leather skirt and fussed with the cuffs on her linen sleeves, too accustomed to the rough feel of wool. She wasn't used to formal dinner attire, especially without the ever present layers of fur. None of us were.

She told me the story as she made little adjustments, "We had been further north, skirmishing with the army of the dead. Jon Snow and your mother had burned through their ranks but there were so many and they kept coming. For every one of the Northern men or Knights of the Vale that fell, there was another soldier for the Night King. And then the snows started falling—faster, colder, deeper than I'd ever seen before. Daenerys Stormborn and her black dragon hadn't been seen in the skies above for hours and one of the Tully soldiers told me they'd seen Drogon take a spear in his left wing. So I called our last fighting men and women back to Bear Island and hoped for the best. The last I saw of Jon Snow, he was riding Rhaegal and following the Night King in the sky, both headed to Winterfell."

Lyanna was wearing a small silver pin at her throat, that of the Mormont sigil, but on second thought, she slipped it from the black-colored fabric. She bent down and pinned it at my collar bone, against the dark blue of the gown Mother said I should wear. The dress had silver threads scrolled at the hem, with the outline of fearsome dragons slithering around the bottom of my skirt.

"There. With your silver-blond hair, they may forget you're half-bear and I won't have that," Lyanna pulled her hands back, satisfied. She tipped her head towards the dining hall, "Come, Jeorgianna. Time to mingle with other animals in the forest."

* 

* * *

"Lady Mormont," Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, came forward and offered his free hand to Lyanna as soon as we entered the room. She took it, with only the briefest of hesitation. Cersei Lannister's shadow still hung over the land and her little brother was always fighting against the ugly stain of his family's once proud name. "I'm not surprised to find that you survived the winter. The Mormont way is…steadfast."

His other hand was clutching a wine goblet and he grinned on his own private joke as he took a drink from it. Sansa Stark had risen from her seat at the head of the table upon our entrance. Her red hair was arranged simply, braided back from her face but left down around her shoulders. She was as beautiful as all the stories, with smooth skin and bright, blue-gray Tully eyes. Those blue-gray eyes flickered first to Tyrion and his wine glass, something long-suffering in that gaze she turned on him, and then on Lyanna and I, with that same welcoming smile that she met us with at the gate.

"You are most welcome, Lady Mormont and Lady Jeorgianna," she waved her hand at any of the empty seats around the dining table, of which there were many. Indeed, Winterfell was too large for its inhabitants at present, the empty chambers outnumbering the rest five to one. War and winter are scythes that cut down numbers not easily recovered. No doubt our hostess was pleased to fill even two more seats than usual. "I don't believe Brienne will make it in time for dinner, as the Lord Commander will doubtlessly drag his feet and I've had a raven from Arya saying that she and Sandor are still at the Twins, cleaning out the rats that holed up there for the winter. But my brother will join us soon and Maester Tarly as well, if his wife can coax them both out of the library for the span of an hour. And is Ser Bronn back yet, Tyrion?"

"He better be. He's promised to bring me a cask of Dornish wine by nightfall," the dwarf muttered. His eyes had darkened ever so slightly at Lady Sansa's mention of the name Sandor. I have no idea why but I could only assume that the Sandor in question was Sandor Clegane, the Hound, the man who had finally killed the Mountain. My father had fought with him before that, above the Wall, and though we had no confirmation that he had survived the winter, Father said he was not the sort of dog that would roll over and die easily. Evidently, he hadn't died at all.

Before we were able to claim our seats, the door behind us opened and a very friendly voice immediately greeted us, "Well, hello there!"

The man speaking was a good-sized man, jolly in his hefty girth. His grin was wide and his tone so good-natured that, although I had never met him, I knew him at once as Samwell Tarly, Maester of Winterfell. He had pushed in another man sitting in a great chair with wheels, dark-haired and crippled, with eyes as ancient as I've ever seen on any person, young or old. This was Bran Stark, the Three-Eyed Raven. He said nothing, as Maester Tarly was still speaking, but nodded his head towards us both graciously.

Maester Tarly continued, bending his head in respect, "Lyanna Mormont, my lady, you look well. You've grown tall—not that you ever needed the height, surely. Stature is really a state of mind, I always say. Eh, Lord Tyrion? And this little bear woman beside you? You must be Ser Jorah's daughter?"

"Yes," Lyanna confirmed shortly, unimpressed by his eager, rambling manner, though she kept her expression neutral rather than frown darkly, as might have been her custom when she was younger. She rested her hand on my shoulder. "This is Jeorgianna Mormont, daughter of Daenerys Targaryen and Ser Jorah Mormont."

"You're the spitting image of your mother," Maester Tarly replied with wonder, speaking directly to me.

"Except those eyes," Lord Tyrion added, while taking yet another drink, which I noticed Lady Stark watch with her teeth on edge. His legendary drinking habit was perhaps not well-received by his sworn Queen. My mind wandered at bit, wondering briefly at the relationship between these two. They had been married once, a long time ago, and then thrown together for a decade of winter. I wondered…but then Lord Tyrion was in front of me, "Look at me, child."

I did as he asked. We were near enough each other's height, though I was the taller of the two. The diagonal scar across his face, received at the Battle of the Blackwater, was not nearly as pronounced as the stories might have me believe. He had an easy smile and a smooth manner but his eyes were tinged with an old sadness that couldn't be shaken off easily.

He stared at me with a wistful glance, saying, "Those are the same eyes that I saw as I was brought back from a watery grave, at the edge of Old Valyria and the Smoking Sea. You have your father's eyes, Lady Mormont."

I'd heard that before, many times, from Lyanna, from the other cousins, and from my mother who always said it with pleasure, happy to see the reflection of my father in her child.

"Will Ser Jorah be joining us?" Lord Tyrion turned his attention to Lyanna. "I'd like to swap war stories with the miserable old bear."

"Later," Lyanna nodded with affirmation. "He's reluctant to leave Daenerys's side just yet, as you can imagine."

"What did they name the child?" Bran Stark wondered aloud, speaking for all in the room. A newborn in spring is a wonderful omen and the sweet thought that there was a baby in the halls of Winterfell seemed to breathe new life into these old, winter-worn halls.

"Jon," Lyanna replied, the name filling the hall with a sound so familiar that the place itself nearly laughed in joy. This hall knew that name well. Maester Tarly's grin only broadened at Lyanna's answer. Lord Tyrion nodded his approval and both Sansa Stark and her brother glanced at each other in shared memory. "They named him Jon."


	4. Old Stories

**Author's Note** : Thanks for the lovely reviews/comments! A quick note for other Jorah/Dany writers – so…I quit getting hate mail after I untagged Jon as a character. Coincidence? No idea. Maybe they just got tired and decided to chill out. Yeah, let's play pretend. But anyway, thought I'd share. As always, thanks for reading! :) _****_

_**OLD STORIES**_

"…and Lysa Arryn's idiot son was ramblin' on about pushin' Lord Tyrion here through the fuckin' moon door. He wouldn't shut up about it, just went on and on," Ser Bronn paused in his retelling, turning to Tyrion at his right side, asking with sudden curiosity, "Do we know if Baby Boy Arryn survived the winter yet?"

"No, not a word from the Vale," Tyrion shook his head, sitting back in his chair, sipping on his wine, pleasantly drunk although we were only halfway through dinner. "But I'm sure he's alive. It's been my experience that the undeserving cunts among us survive far longer than they should…" he straightened up for only a moment, raising his glass and amending his last statement with a wry grin, "Present company excepted, of course."

Lyanna, sitting on my right side and running her fork through the last of winter's root vegetables on her dinner plate, didn't look up at Lord Tyrion's comment. She wasn't one for casual dinner conversation and may not even be listening. At my left side, Maester Tarly smiled congenially at the joke while across the table, Ser Bronn laughed and added, "Oh, I don't know about that, milord."

Lady Sansa's lips twitched on a smile but there was terseness in her expression and she and Lord Tyrion shared a look, one of many during the course of dinner. I didn't know these people, not really. But years of hearing their stories had made them as familiar to me as my own family and I couldn't help thinking that Lord Tyrion's wry grins and wine-flavored jokes couldn't hide the shadow over his soul. And Lady Sansa's too neutral expression couldn't hide her dismay, or concern, over it.

I wasn't the only one who noticed. If a young girl can see these things, the rest of the company can as well. But it was spring, and peace reigned over the land for at least a few more days, so no one dared ask after lingering scars, unhealed in the long winter.

Ser Bronn continued his story, one I'd never heard before, of how he first came into Lord Tyrion's acquaintance. It was a good story and Ser Bronn told it well, in an honest, self-deprecating manner that denied any more noble or altruistic motivations he might have had at the time. I couldn't tell if he spoke truly. For all his insistence that the only reason he fought as Lord Tyrion's champion was for a Lannister purse, the connection between the two men, seated side by side at dinner, was palpable. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater and Tyrion Lannister were brothers in all but blood.

I noticed too that Ser Bronn was careful to cast Lysa Arryn and her son as the true villains in the story and kept the references to Catelyn Stark minimal. There was grace in this, considering his audience. And the Starks seemed to approve, with Lady Sansa even adding to Ser Bronn's narrative once or twice to confirm his impressions, "Aunt Lysa was out of her mind at the end. She was always odd, even when we were children, but I didn't recognize the depth of her madness until much later, did you, Bran?"

"I honestly don't remember meeting her at all," the young Lord Stark replied simply, but the mysticism that clung to him said that wasn't the whole story. Bran Stark holds the memories of a generation in his head. His Aunt Lysa's insanity and jealousy had sparked a war. There was no way the Three-Eyed Raven hadn't _seen_ the moment happen, though perhaps not in the flesh.

"Too busy climbing castle walls back then to pay attention to the adults below, I imagine?" Maester Tarly teased, then nudged me as if in shared conspiracy. "The adults never have anything interesting to say, anyway. Lady Jeorgianna knows this well enough, don't you?"

He was wrong to think me a child, of course. On Bear Island, we grow up early or not at all. But I liked Samwell Tarly immensely, even an hour after meeting him, and I wouldn't hold his soft, Southern misconceptions against him. His kind, naturally father-like manner was endearing and I gave him both a smile and the assenting nod he was hoping for.

"Oh, good," he seemed to sigh in relief. "I was hoping you inherited your mother's ability to smile. It doesn't run in your father's family, I'm afraid."

Well, Lyanna was listening after all. She put her fork down on the bone china and sent a withering glare down the table at the maester. He was untroubled, as she proved his point just by sending that glance his way. Maester Tarly's happy demeanor was impossible to shake and he shrugged innocently.

"Please don't take it as an insult, Lady Mormont," he said, with natural generosity in his tone. "I owe a great deal to Lord Commander Mormont. Other than Jon, I can't think of another man that I owe more and I'll remember that debt until the day I die. But, be honest, did you ever see the Old Bear smile?"

"I was two months old when he took the black so…no, I never saw him smile," Lyanna answered tartly, still bitter over the loss of her uncle, my grandfather, even more than a decade after his untimely death.

"Your own mother then?" Maester Tarly prodded.

"Not even the _whisper_ of a grin," Lyanna replied, proudly, but risking, in her own pleasure, a grin of her own. With remarkable forbearance, she kept her expression as cold and immovable as the face of a glacier.

In response, Maester Tarly just smiled broadly for the both of them. I felt my own half-smirk deepen ever so slightly at the big man with the good heart, Jon Snow's best friend and the man who once saved my father's life.

"Ah!" Lord Tyrion suddenly lifted his head, his gaze distracted by movement at the entryway to the dining chamber. He continued, with a host's gentility, "And here comes another miserable Mormont. Ser Jorah, welcome!"

Father had finally joined us. Brienne of Tarth (it must be her, as I'd never seen a woman as tall, not even on Bear Island) and a tall, strong man with a full red beard and mess of fiery hair, all streaked with gray, followed him in. They had met in the outer halls and already discussed certain news—that was obvious. For Brienne of Tarth was holding a raven's note and my father was glowering, as Lord Tyrion would say. Even the red-haired man seemed unsettled.

"Lord Tyrion," my father nodded to the dwarf, with warmth, and sent a respectful dip of his head in Sansa Stark's direction as well. "Lady Stark."

Beside me, Maester Tarly had risen, the feet of his chair scraping against the stone floor noisily. He immediately extended his hand to my father, saying, with feeling, "Ser Jorah, it's good to see you. And my sincerest congratulations to you. I trust that your lady and the child are both well?"

"They are, thank you, Sam," Father took the offered hand, bringing his other up to grip Maester Tarly's forearm for a brief moment, an acknowledgment of their shared history.

From the head of the table, Lady Sansa spoke up, "Lady Brienne, I'm glad to see you've convinced the Lord Commander to visit Winterfell."

"Yes, my lady," Brienne replied, without bothering to hide the grim tone in her voice. "But we bring news from Eastwatch by the Sea that…" She trailed off, perhaps hoping to preserve the promise of spring for just a few moments more. Perhaps waiting for leave to continue, as her gaze flickered to me, the sole child in this makeshift council room.

In the meantime, my father had come behind my chair and placed his hands on my shoulders. I tipped my head up to find his kind blue eyes, the color of clear winter skies, mirror of my own, looking down on me fondly.

"Have you finished your dinner, lass?" he wondered, noting the relative emptiness of my plate. I nodded my response. He continued, "Good. Your mother wants to see you before she sleeps…if you'll let me take your place at dinner."

I knew what he was doing. He didn't want me to hear the news from Eastwatch. At least not until he knew what it meant. My father protects those he loves. From sword and storm. From plots and politics. From words in a raven's message, whenever possible. And we love him, most ardently, for it.

I felt Father gently squeeze my left shoulder, asking for my compliance. He always asked, never commanded. This was a trick he had learned from however many years of living and loving a Targaryen. Dragons don't take commands well. But a gentle hand will soothe us into submission.

Besides, I would hear the news from Lyanna later, perhaps even that evening. Lyanna loves me too but says Father's efforts to protect me from stark facts is another one of his failings as a Mormont ("and he thinks you're more dragon than bear, because you look just like your mother, but I know better," she's told me before). In either case, I could read the pale face of Lady Brienne and knew that there was no escaping whatever was written on that scroll in her hand.

So, I slid from my seat, garnering a silent, heartfelt "thank you" from my father. He squeezed my shoulder once more and kissed the top of my head before releasing me.

I curtsied once to the gathering and went upstairs to my mother's chambers.


	5. Family

**Author's Note:** So first of all, sorry for the long delay since my last update. I'm going to blame a mixture of real life, other writing projects and some indecision on my part about what I wanted from this fic. Although I have no plans on abandoning Jorah/Dany fics, I've decided to end this particular story here. For now, anyway. There's more to Jeorgianna's story and I certainly plan on continuing it in the future. But I've decided I want to play in the backstory that I've hinted at throughout this fic. Basically, I'm in the mood for some major Jorah/Dany angst sooooo…look for that in the near future ;)

Hope you enjoy how I wrap this up. Mother and daughter moments are some of my faves when it comes to happy endings. Haha yesssss, it's a little low on melodrama for my tastes, but hey, that's what the prequel's for. As always, thanks for reading! Xo

 _ **CHAPTER FIVE: FAMILY**_

"His hair is dark," I mused aloud, though quietly, keeping my voice hushed and low. My little brother, no more than two days old, was sleeping soundly in a Winterfell cradle. I was crouched beside it on the stone floor, peering in. The wooden sides of the cradle were carved ornately with howling wolves and snow-covered pines. Jon slept swaddled in a small quilt, the blue color of robin's eggs, snug and warm and safe from any lingering winter chill…or any other danger. The cradle was within arm's reach of my mother's bed.

"Yours was silver white." Mother was propped up, sitting with her back against the headboard of the large bed. At her words, she stretched out her hand and stroked my hair absently. "It darkened as you grew, with a little gold and red mixed in. I think Jon's will stay dark. Your father says his mother's hair was black as a raven's wing and some of the old Mormonts were dark-haired like Lyanna."

"Will he have brown eyes like her?" I asked, turning my gaze away from Jon.

"No," she shook her head, answering with unshakable conviction. "When he wakes, you'll see. He has blue eyes, same as yours, same as Jorah's."

She was pleased by this. I could hear the approval in her voice and see the pleasure in the maternal glance she turned on her sleeping child. She didn't have to say the words written so plainly on her face:

 _All my children shall have their father's eyes._

To me, she said, "Come, I'll braid your hair, Jeorgianna." She patted the spot on the mattress beside her and I rose from Jon's cradle, crawling up beside my mother. She reached for an ivory comb sitting on the nightstand, while I gathered my loose, long hair and pushed it back behind my shoulders.

I sat with my knees drawn up against my chest, as I always did at home. Mother's hands worked deftly, pulling up strands from the sides of my head to weave into the intricate crown she braided, in styles she learned in the deserts of the East, while I picked at a fraying silver thread on the hem of my dress.

"Did you enjoy dinner?" she asked me.

I nodded against my knees.

"Yes," I answered, mumbling, "The Imp drinks too much."

Mother gave a huff of laughter at my manner and the bluntness of the observation, replying, "He always has. Wine has been a crutch for him since before you were born."

"I don't think Lady Sansa is very happy about it." I mentioned, recalling her shadowed expression and the shared looks between the Lady of Winterfell and Lord Tyrion.

"No, she isn't," Mother said, her busy fingers picking up another strand of my hair. She lowered her voice a little, pausing momentarily to check for any hovering servants in the doorway to the chamber. Satisfied that there were no eavesdropping ears, she continued, "Lord Tyrion has loved Sansa Stark for many years. But he's convinced she won't have him. So he drinks, because he's had too much practice drowning his sorrows in wine."

Curious, I turned my head sharply, "How do you know that?"

"You saw them together, didn't you?" she answered. With a gentle but firm hand, Mother straightened my head back to facing forward. "Besides, Tyrion once told your father as much."

"Really? He confided in Father?" I was surprised, considering Lord Tyrion's numerous allusions to the coolness of my father's personality.

"They have a complicated history," Mother explained, in a tone that betrayed the understated nature of that statement.

"But Lady Sansa loves him back," I muttered into my knees. "It's obvious."

"Perhaps to you and everyone else in this castle," Mother agreed, then sighed. "Love is hard to trust when you've grown up in its absence. Or worse, when you've felt the sting of its betrayal. And both Lady Sansa and Lord Tyrion have felt that sting, many times over. A person's heart can grow so cold that it fails to recognize…"

She wasn't just speaking about the lord and lady of Winterfell now. Her hands had slowed in my hair and I knew she was reminded of other times, in faraway places. She shook it off, not finishing the former thought and changing the subject, "Did you meet Samwell Tarly?"

I smiled, "Oh, I like Maester Tarly very much. And the others were kind. I saw Brienne of Tarth, I think. She came in to the dining hall before I came upstairs."

"She's as tall as your father, nearly as tall as the Hound. She's a fine warrior too. She's bested more men in combat than…," Mother replied, but then drifted off again, changing her tone abruptly. "I thought she had gone to Castle Black to fetch the Lord Commander?"

"Yes, he came in with her," I answered. "They brought news with them from Eastwatch but they must have told Father first. They entered together and he sent me upstairs before I could hear what the news was."

Now Mother's hands stilled in my hair. I imagine her expression darkened by a degree at my words, but I was still facing away from her, with my head bent and my fingers picking at that loose silver thread on my hem. She reached forward and pulled my hand away from the dress.

"Don't pick at it," she said sternly. "You'll pull out the seam."

Then she picked up another strand of my hair and began working again. But she was unsettled by the unknown danger from Eastwatch and by the fact that Father had sent me away from the dining hall before that danger was revealed. I could feel the change in her touch and the change in her breathing pattern.

She continued, more to herself than to me, "Perhaps I shouldn't have been wishing for spring after all. At least winter made lambs of our enemies."

"Do we have many enemies left?" I asked, remembering again the names of the dead. _Cersei Lannister, Robert Baratheon, Tywin Lannister, Balon Greyjoy, Gregor Clegane, Joffrey Baratheon, the Night King_. The list was a long one.

"Too many," Mother replied, muttering, "And I left too many behind in Essos."

Mother rarely talked about the East. Things had happened to her across the Narrow Sea that she would not talk about, not to anyone but Father. I knew only bits and pieces, foreign words that hinted at a strange and rich history. I knew she had been called Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons. I knew my mother had been a conqueror in the East.

She was once the Silver Queen, feared and respected the world over. When she arrived in Westeros, she commanded multiple armies, a thousand ships and three dragons. I've heard the fish wives say that, if not for winter's interference, Daenerys Stormborn would have won back her father's Iron Throne, even if she had to paint the whole country scarlet with blood and flames.

But winter froze her armies and all her ambitions. The fearsome Silver Queen died on that last battlefield. In her death, my mother, the exiled, world-weary princess who landed on Bear Island's storm-tossed shores was reborn. Would my mother melt away in the spring? Would her past come back to claim her with iron shackles? A sudden chill flickered through my heart.

I knew my mother. I _loved_ my mother. I wasn't at all sure that I would love the Silver Queen.

I turned my head slightly, whispering meekly, almost afraid of the answer, "Will you try for the Iron Throne again?"

There was a long pause before Mother answered. Her hands continued braiding my long tresses while she considered her answer. But soon enough she abandoned the braids, using her hands to turn me towards her, cupping my chin in her hand so I was forced to look straight into her violet eyes.

"No, Jeorgianna," she reassured me, grinning into her answer. "My days of being a Queen are long over. My family is worth more to me than any iron throne or golden crown. And there is nothing in this world worth fighting for except for love. Cold hearts be _damned._ This is a lesson I learned from your father, over the course of more years than I deserved. But I learned it well and I will never forget. Life means nothing without love. Do you understand?"

I smiled back, nodding quickly, relieved at her answer.

"And whatever this news from Eastwatch is…," she continued, the grin being replaced by a steely, determined expression, a keepsake of the fearsome Queen she had once been. "We'll face it together."

"Aye, we will," came a familiar voice from the doorway. Mother and I both looked up to find Father beaming at us, his girls, with those blue eyes glinting affection. He met Mother's gaze as she pulled me into a warm embrace and, as always, a flood of unspoken words passed between them.

That raven's message from Eastwatch had yet to be revealed but with my baby brother sleeping soundly in his cradle, my mother's arms wrapped tightly around me and my father standing near, his posture fierce and protective as always, I was unafraid.

Whatever it was, we'd face it together.


End file.
